Clarification of stance on disability placards

Tools

The Mayor’s Office on Disability has received calls and emails because of a misleading paragraph about me in your Thursday cover story “Disability-placard use spurs worries of abuse.” For the record, I think only people whose disability makes it difficult or impossible to use public transit should have and use a placard.

In a “transit first” city, the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency wants to promote people using public transit, biking or walking. Because people with disabilities often face greater challenges with public transit, or are unable to use it at all, they are more likely to have a need for private vehicle use in The City.

People with disabilities using their own cars means they are not using the very expensive paratransit services The City provides. Therefore, we should welcome higher percentages of disability placards at meters than the percentage in the general population because that is an indicator that The City’s transit-first policies are working.

Susan Mizner, Director, Mayor’s Office on Disability, San Francisco

Don’t be Trump’s chumps

Sometimes I think the news media are trying to make the public stupid. Every four years Donald Trump pretends he’s going to run for president and every four years he decides not to for the same reason.

Trump likes being a billionaire and he’s not going to give that up to get any other job. But every time, the news media acts like he’s serious. Why don’t they just say, “We’re not going to cover this because it’s stupid.”

America is in real trouble and no one is taking it seriously. If the news media were really covering the news, they would be discussing real issues like the fact that America is dangerously close to collapsing.

Marc Perkel, Gilroy

Obama is not our king

Back when America was a Crown Colony, our forefathers protested new tax law by boycotting English-made goods. King George III, intent to punish, asked his solicitor which laws were being broken. He was told that the American boycott was legal, that the king had no right to force his subjects to buy anything.

It is interesting that President Barack Obama thinks our Constitution gives him the right to force Americans to buy health insurance. Must be that “living constitution” the left is so fond of.